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Bibimbap is never as good as when you decide to upgrade it to dol sot bibimbap, where the rice, veggies, meat and a raw egg is seared to crispness in the hot stone pot bowl it’s served in. This is exactly how it’s done at Sobahn Express inside the HMart foodcourt in Irvine’s Diamond Jamboree. Dozens of these bowls are heated on stoves roaring at full blast, ready to be filled and served at temperatures that can and will burn anything it touches to cinder. When you eat, the raw egg cracked on top cooks instantly after you mix it up with the rice, the whole thing hissing, sputtering, steaming. Every spoonful you scoop is as scorching as the one you took three minutes ago. When you leave it alone for a while, the rice that sits too long cooks to a crunchy sheet, becoming a cousin to what the Persians call tadig.

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